The Dream Machine
by Sylveon Lord
Summary: [FE4-10 Sci-Fi AU, Roy/Eirika] I am the tester of a method of training people using their dreams, a machine known simply as the 'Dream Machine'. I am not allowed to interact with anyone except a select few people. When I finally am introduced to others, the purpose behind the facility I always called home, and my role in it, begins to unfold...
1. Prologue

**So yeah. Starting this. I dunno why, but I'm in the mood for Sci-fi, so... ta-da! ...yeah. I kept having Roy/Eirika Sci-fi dreams, and this was the ultimate result.**

**Disclaimer: You should know this already.**

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**The Dream Machine**

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_The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience. __-_Mahatma Gandhi

**Prologue**

I have been here forever.

I have never seen outside a mere three rooms in this place (however big it is) but I feel as if all of it is old. Many of the books I've read mentioned a 'sun', but despite their consistency with describing it, I was always skeptical of its existence. The books always said it was above us, but every time I look, I just see the ceiling of whatever room I'm in. It's just the same boring pattern, every time.

The only people I ever knew were the scientists, Seliph and Leif, whose parents were among the scientists before they died, and Voice, that strange little person at the back of my head who seemed to know everything, sometimes before those things happen. I was never even introduced to the scientists' other patients. I presume it's because they would get frostbite.

I slowly get out of my bed and check the thermometer. It is negative twenty-nine degrees, Celsius. Ice crystals have completely surrounded me, covering every area of the room.

"Well," I sigh, "At least it isn't negative forty. I'd say that negative twenty-nine is a new record."

"No, it isn't." I hear Voice say. "You've gotten it up to negative twenty-eight before."

I sigh. "You're right."

"Now clean this up. You want Seliph to be able to both navigate the room and avoid frostbite."

"I know that, Voice!" I cry, probably louder than necessary and scattering a few shards of ice about the room as I did so, before calmly obeying. It was a sort of routine. I wake up; check the temperature of the room to discover how badly my powers had gone out of control while I slept, Voice yells at me, and I clean it up. As soon as it is warm enough, Seliph would walk in and take me to the Dream Machine, though he didn't know anything about it.

After I had finished cleaning and bringing the temperature to something a normal human (like Seliph) could tolerate, he walked in, right on schedule.

Seliph Chalphy was the son of the late Dr. Sigurd Chalphy, and it shows. I have never known Dr. Chalphy, but I have seen pictures. Dr. Chalphy and Seliph shared their bright blue eyes and dark blue hair, though Seliph wears his much longer than Dr. Chalphy had. He also looked more similar to his mother, Deirdre Velthomer (she remarried following her husband's death, bore twins Julia and Julius and died of illness shortly after), in terms of features, sharing her slender face and frame.

"Roy," Seliph says, beginning with calling my name, as usual. "We have to go now." I solemnly walk over to him. "What do they do to you?" I have heard this question a lot. "You never want to go."

"I can't tell you that Seliph! They'll have my head! Or yours!" I say, looking him in the eyes. I cannot count how many times I have said this.

Sighing, Seliph led me out of the room, unwittingly leading me to the torture chamber known as the Dream Machine.

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**So yeah. This is gonna be weird, haha.**

**The final title for this is obviously the Dream Machine, and I'm going with Option 1. If you know what I mean, great! If you don't, also fine. It doesn't affect much. Just be glad no LOLSCIENTIST HECTOR.**

**Also, though I debated this with myself for a while, this will be FE4-FE10 only, not counting FE5. Sorry, FE2. **

**-Glac.**


	2. Chapter 1: The Dream Machine

**So... Chapter 1. After a semi cryptic prologue, we learn exactly what happens in Roy's daily life. Hooray.**

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**Chapter 1: The Dream Machine**

Seliph gestures at the doorway and hangs his head when we arrive at our destination, before calmly turning to leave. I enter the expansive laboratory and immediately begin to set it up. I have had it set up for me so many times that I didn't really require help with it anymore. It is just a precautionary deliberator and oxygen mask, and a small wire that attaches to a nearly invisible implant at the back of my neck (by nearly invisible I mean that Seliph never noticed). That was apparently the first issue with the Dream Machine; the current model requires a very major and dangerous brain operation, which I had received when I was three.

"Are you ready?" A booming voice speaks over the intercom. I look up to see Dr. Arvis Velthomer, Seliph's stepfather, looking down at me from the screen. I nod, lying on the table while one of the younger scientists, Dr. Lehran Sephiran, gently takes my arm. I sit quietly as he injects a small amount of a potent sleeping drug into my bloodstream. It does not take long for it to pull me into the state of half-consciousness that makes the Dream Machine work so well.

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The purpose of the Dream Machine is simply to teach me to keep my powers controlled. Every image that it forcibly places in my half-conscious mind is designed to torment me. Most of it involved Seliph, maybe Leif from time to time. Usually when Leif did appear, all it is would be him lying in the hospital bed, a large scar across his forehead, with no recollection of our childhood. That was the last day before the Dream Machine was officially approved for human testing.

I see the same things over and over. It never ends. The last bit of consciousness I have, which is so I can better apply the emotional control I have when fully conscious, is the only thing preventing me from, tossing, turning, maybe screaming in my sleep.

"Don't let it show." I mumble. "No matter how frightened you are, no matter how many times you see Seliph die; no matter how many times Leif loses his memories, you can't let it show. You'll freeze everything if you do…"

Over and over. I feel relieved and exhausted when the machine probes me awake. That was another strange thing about it, it takes a lot of energy out of the subject, more than running a few miles, as some of the doctors say. I'm not quite sure what they mean by it.

Dr. Sephiran calmly guides my body into an upright position, as I am usually quite weak after each session. He unhooks the machine, removing the wire and the precautionary equipment. I glance around the room. A few shards of ice were scattered about the room, but I was doing better. At least I hadn't frozen everything. That would earn me quite the scolding and perhaps being denied a meal. I feel Dr. Sephiran handing me a roll, which Seliph had brought up from the kitchen. I permissively allow him to help me eat it, because I am too weak to do it myself. As soon as I finish with my assisted eating, I'm hooked up again for more tormenting images. I reawaken twice more during the day, once simply for lunch, the second time for dinner and having Seliph send me to bed.

"You're shaking like a leaf." Seliph says, as usual. "You can't stand after they finish with you. You can barely sit up! Roy, they're torturing you. You can't let this—"

"Seliph," I mumble warningly. "Be careful…"

Seliph bites his lip as he places me back on my bed (I'm apparently quite light, not very hard to lift). "We can run…"

"And then? Seliph, I barely know anything beyond what I do here. And neither do you. Do you even know the way out?"

"No…" Seliph stares at his feet as he says this. He always seemed to talk about simply fleeing the facility, before I hit him with the sad truth that we are both stuck here. "Good night, Roy." Seliph says as he leaves.

"Good night, Seliph."

"You won't… tell him?" Voice asks.

"He'll know tomorrow." I say, allowing my weak, exhausted body fall back to sleep for the first real time that day.

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**So we introduce Arvis more formally and bring Sephiran into this. Seems productive.**

**This has a thread if you want to look.**

**-Glac**


End file.
